Up until now, John Kotches has been
uploading the CEDIA news that you have been reading. I think he has done
a great job covering the show. This was his first trade-show for Secrets,
and I look forward to working with him again and the rest of the Secrets staff
at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show.

This
year, at CEDIA, Meridian had two new products on display. The DSP-8000s are not
exactly new, they were introduced at the 2000 CES in January. They are
now shipping and have been since June. Unlike CES, there were demonstrating
multi-channel DVD-A. They had 3 DSP-8000s up front and a pair of
DSP-6000s in the rear. During the film clips, they also had a pair of
DSP-5500s on the sides.

Meridian chose two video clips, one
standard CD being upsampled, and two DVD-A tracks. The first clip they
chose was not one that really shows off picture or sound, but it did poke fun
at this industry. I thought it was a great choice. It was a scene
from "Just the Ticket" staring Andy Garcia and Andie
MacDowell. It was a scene where Mr. Garcia was trying to get a date with
Andie. He bet her he could sell a big screen TV. I won't spoil the
rest. The video was being fed into the S&W Interpolator via a DVI
output card in the 800. That card will be coming out in the future by
S&W.

Something unique about the DSP-8000s is
that they actually upsample the incoming signal to 88.2 or 96 kHz. This
means if you are watching a movie in DD or DTS that has been decoded by the
561, 565, 568, or 861, it will get upsampled in the speaker.

At the show, Meridian also had a pair of 8ks
in red! The image that I took does not do justice to the color, but it
will give you an idea. Meridian say's that they can provide them in
virtually any color you want. A price has not been set for these custom
colors, but people were very interested.

The new announcement at Cedia was the
introduction of the 596 DVD Video player. While Meridian has had two
prior 500 series DVD players, this is the first one built from the ground up
(it inherits a lot from its bigger brother the 800). This new player will be
shipping in November for $4,250.

The 596 is upgradeable to future
technologies like DVD-A. All of the outputs on the back panel are on a
removable plate. Meridian chose to release a DVD-V player first because
they felt that not everyone may want to spend the extra money on DVD-A.
With the 596, you have the option to upgrading to DVD-A when it is
ready. DVD-A players and software (40 titles are out in Japan right now
and there is no region coding on DVD-A) are now available. Meridian plans to
have DVD-A early next year.

The 596 will player DVD-V, CD, VCD, CVCD
(Chinese), and MP3s. (The MPs must be recorded on a CD-R so that means the 596
also handles CD-Rs.)
The 596 uses 192/24 DACs on the 2-channel analog outputs. It supports
both DD and DTS and can play PAL and NTSC in their native format or even
transcode between the two. It also uses MHR on the digital
outputs. MHR allows Meridian to pass a 96/24 signal to their processor
in a secure fashion. (Some DVD players today will output 96/24 if the disc
allows it.) It is possible for a disc to instruct the player to down covert
the signal, in which case a player will output 48/24. With MHR, they can
still pass that 96/24 signal. MHR will be in place until the industry
can provide a standard method to transmit the audio. A couple of large
Japanese companies told me that they do not expect that anytime soon! If
their products do output a digital signal, you can bet it will be proprietary
and will only work with their products. Sharp, Meridian, and I believe
Pioneer, have all developed their own secure methods.

The 596 is also using a new navigation
manager inside of the player. It has been completely re-written from scratch
compared to what is currently in the 800. Don't fret, the 800 navigation
manager can be upgraded with a simple flash upgrade. It will be later
this year or early next when the 800 gets the new software. The new
software offers a screen saver and you can customize when it activates.
The 596 is also built using 6-layer boards and has 9 separate power
supplies. The 596 will change its behavior (optimizes itself)
depending on the type of source material (CD or DVD).

One of the most outrageous booths at the
show belonged to Runco. If you look in the photo above and to the left, just above
the letters E and R in the word Diner, you will see four 3-Chip DLPS
stacked. They were used to display a VERY large image like that of a
drive-in movie theater. They had several old style cars sitting in
front of the screen where you could kick back and enjoy the film. Sam (Runco)
even had the guts to project a B&W film, and it was great! (Way to go Sam!)

Runco also introduced a bunch of new
products at their press conference. Their new line of Ultra processors
sound VERY promising, and I hope one day to get to look at the 4403 Ultra
(please, please, please). They gave a quick demonstration of two CRTs
with and without color filters (they were side by side using two screens).

Dwin
had their new TransVision DLP projector on Display. You can see it
sitting on top of the TranScanner 2 (TS2) in the photo. The photo does not
really illustrate the new color that is being used for the DLP. It comes
off as beige in the photo, but it is more of an aqua or cyan. The
TransVision uses a 1024 x 768 TI DMD panel. Unlike others, the Dwin is
built from the ground up. It retails for $12,995 and includes a custom
version of the TS2. It is only going to be sold as a package
system. This DLP did a very good job reproducing blacks (still not as
good as CRT and D-ILA, but one of the best DLPs that I have seen yet).

The TransVision has settings for Gamma
Correction, gray scale, brightness, and contrast for each source.
Finally someone realizes that the gray scale settings may be different for DVD
than they are for LD, HD, or DSS. The TS2 is equipped with two 15-pin
VGA inputs (not an exact pass through, you get contrast and brightness
adjustments), two composite, two S-Video , and three component inputs. The component can be
either progressive or interlaced. The TS2 also has a built-in
transcoder. One of the nicest features the TV offers is auto aspect
ratio control. It knows whether the source is 4:3, letterbox, or anamorphic,
and will switch automatically. You can always override the TV if it
detects wrong. This is a great improvement, if not an innovation, in the
home theater market (a big usability issue).

There is also a stand alone TS2 which
offers most of the above features (minus aspect ratio control and gamma/gray
scale). The TS2 will retail for the same price as the original TS1.

Martin Glasband was on hand showing off his
new Equi=Tech balanced transformers. The ETs are the only balanced
products on the market that have real UL rating (approval). The units shown in
the picture have a brand new face plate for the consumer market. The
version I have is more industrial looking. When I did my review of the
ET, it was with the standard transformer. They are now shipping with the
Q transformer (I have since upgraded to the Q). The Q offers more mass
in the transformer. This prevents any chance of saturation. The
1.5 kVA Q vs. Non-Q is about a 12 pound transformer difference. I have
had the chance to try a few different balanced transformers, and the ETs are by
far the best on the market.

JVC had a very impressive display with
their new D-ILA projectors. In fact, it was clear that the D-ILA that
JVC had on hand was superior to all other DLPs on display at CEDIA in both
resolution and ability to reproduce blacks.

One of the biggest buzzes on the
Internet forums is the Cinematrix mod coming from MSB. I got a chance to
see this on display at CES and walked away less than impressed. The
version that they had running at CEDIA was a major improvement! I still
don't know how good it really is and will reserve judgment until I can do a full
evaluation. The cool thing about this mod is that it can be added to
DVD, DSS, and digital VCRs. There are two upgrades available, one for
$899 and one for $1,395. The larger package includes Windows software
that will allow you to totally customize the Cinematrix.

The output of the Cinematrix is DVI.
That is fed into an external box that will output RGBHV on BNC or a 15-pin VGA
jack.

Princeton had their new progressive/scaling
DVD player at the show. They had
two players, one with the 16x9 TV and one on a 4:3 TV. Only one was
actually working. I think a cable was bad on the other. I made
three visits to the booth and at no time could I get any information on the
player. It was sitting there by itself with no one around. From
what I could gather, it will not be out this year. The disc in the
player was super speedway, which is far from my favorite material.
Princeton did very little to promote the player. There was not even any
information on it in their press kit.

The new Princeton 16x9 30" monitor
rocks! They had a few of those on display, showing HDTV material.

Seleco showed their new DLP projector. They demonstrated an 800x600 DMD panel version. The first
showed it with the built-in scaler, then they fed a Toshiba SD-5109 into the
DLP using the progressive output on the 5109. The scaler inside was OK,
but the 5109 really did improve the performance. I think the 800x600
retails for $8,999. The chassis that the DLP is housed in is very sleek
and is available in multiple colors. It would be interesting to compare
this one (actually the 1024x768 version) against the Dwin. Neither the
Dwin or Seleco exhibited any halation problems that I have seen with other
DLPs.

Sencore had a couple of new products on
display, the VP300 'Video Pro' and SP295 'Sound Pro'. These
retail for $2,000 each. The Video Pro is their test pattern generator
and can be seen in the photo above, right. It is about the size of a
remote control. You can generate test patterns of any format including
1080i and 720p. You can customize the rates on a PC and upload to the
Video Pro. That means you can create a specific memory for the non-HDTV
standard output that the RCA DTC-100 has.

The Sound Pro is an SPL meter, Real Time
Analyzer (1/12 octave!), Energy Time Graph (RT60), and Audio Signal Generator,
all in one compact hand-held package.

Other news

The four most popular words that I heard
this year at CEDIA were "Copy Protection" and "Real
Progressive" The first term deals with DVD-A and
video, using digital outputs. It sounds like there will be no digital
output "standard" for a while on DVD-A players or SACD. On
the video side, some DVD players are offering an SDI output. Theta comes to
mind. The problem is it is not a secure method. Having now
witnessed Universal win against MP3.com, manufactures are being very careful
not to upset Hollywood. It sounds like DVI may actually become the
digital video standard.

The Real Progressive nonsense that most of
the manufacturers were spewing really bugs me. We will do our best to
clear that up in part 5 of our DVD benchmark. Three manufacturers are
now known to be using the Genesis de-interlacing chip, namely
Panasonic (H1000), Toshiba (6200 and 9200), and Sony (DVP-S9000ES).
Others are using the superior DVDO chip, such as Camelot, EAD, and Ayre. I
am unaware at this time what Pioneer and Onkyo are using.

I am really curious what how you all feel
about DVD-A and SACD. What I want to know is will you buy a stand alone
DVD-A or SACD player that will not also do DVD-V? All of the DVD-A
players that I saw also supported DVD-V. Most of the SACD players are
standalone SACD players, which means you will need a separate player for
DVD-V. Personally I will not own a standalone player, but I would
love to hear your feedback.

- Stacey Spears -

Balance Daniel-san balance!

Equi=tech is a new name to the home
electronics business. They are well known in the professional audio and
broadcast industries as providers of balanced power. With an impressive
list of clients, they have credentials. That's fine, that's good, but
what is "balanced power". Standard power provides a 120 v
signal on pin one of your electrical system, neutral on pin two and ground on
pin three. Balanced power splits up the positive and negative halves of
the AC power into +60 v on pin one and -60 v on pin two. According to
the people at Equitech, no rewiring is necessary to reap the benefits of
balanced power. A variety of models are available for the custom
installation and home theater markets, but pricing and model number
information weren't available at this time. I did manage to sneak
in a picture or two of the home theater products.

Pioneer introduces numerous products.

Pioneer continues to aggressively revamp
their DVD player line, with the announcement and introduction of DVD players
across all market segments. Most noteworthy is the first truly universal
DVD transport, the DV-AX10 (US$4,500). Availability was not announced,
but is anticipated by year's end. Below, left is a picture of the
player, but I was not able to hear a demo of its sonic merits.

Pioneer also demonstrated a DVD-RW player
(above, right), which creates discs compatible with all of the Pioneer DVD
lineup on display at CEDIA. The DVD-RW discs are supposed to be
compatible with most players from other manufacturers as well.

Also on display was an Elite line
Progressive Scan DVD, the DV-37 (US$1,000). Look for a DVD-Audio capable
player to be introduced in the near future with otherwise similar
specifications. The DV-37 is pictured below.

And even more from Panasonic

Not to be outdone, Panasonic had yet
another slew of products introduced, the most notable of which were the
Technics DVD-A10 (US$1,200) which we reviewed recently. This is a
DVD-Video and DVD-Audio player. At this writing, DVD-Audio and SACD
players have no digital output, so decoding must occur within the player.
The Technics player has a digital output for low resolution formats
AC-3 (Dolby Digital), DTS, and CD (16 bit/44.1 kHz). DVD-Audio is
transferred via six analog connections, so whatever this player is being
connected to should have a set of 5.1 inputs. The DVD-A10 is pictured
below, left.

The Panasonic DV-A7 (US$1,000) is a more
"budget" oriented player pictured above right. The DV-A7 is
available at Sears.

Panasonic also introduced their DVD-RAM
drive, the DMR-E10 recorder. Pricing and date availability are not
specified, but based on competitors offerings, I anticipate the price to be
somewhere around the US$2,000 mark. The display was static, so no
testing of recording portability could be done. The DMR-E10 is shown
below.

Last stop, JVC

JVC has one really interesting product
introduction that was attracting quite a bit of attention. Its
combination of features and price were certainly turning a few heads at the
show, even though it was only on static display. The product is the
DX-723GD (US$849). For the price you get DVD-Video, progressive scan
outputs, plus DVD-Audio. The player is at the bottom of the stack in the
picture below. When you can get a DVD player that has DD, DTS, DVD-Audio, and
SACD capability, at CostCo, for $99, I guess it will be time for a new format.